Unlike English, Hebrew belongs to the group of languages that have grammatical gender. The predicate in Hebrew conjugate according to the gender of the subject, which makes the gender of the nouns matters as much as the gender of the pronouns. The subject in Hebrew is divided into masculine and feminine. There is nothing male or female about objects, but when talking about them the verbs and adjectives should conjugate corresponding to their gender.

Photo by Ayana

It`s easy to distinguish feminine nouns from masculine nouns, since most of the feminine nouns end with the letters ה or ת. For example:

Feminine nouns end with ה

Girl

יַלְדָּה

Aunt

דּוֹדָה

Family

מִשְׁפָּחָה

Dress

שִׂמְלָה

Experience

חֲוָיָה

List

רְשִׁימָה

Notice: not every noun that ends with ה is necessarily a feminine. For example: dustpan (=יָעֶה) is masculine, its ה is not the feminine ה but a part of its root.

Feminine nouns end with ת

Daughter

בַּת

Notebook

מַחְבֶּרֶת

Frying pan

מַחֲבַת

Car

מְכוֹנִית

Truth

אֱמֶת

Friendship

חֲבֵרוּת

Notice: not every noun that ends with ת is necessarily a feminine. For example: junction (=צֹמֶת) is a masculine, its ת is not the feminine ת, but a part of its root.

There’s a saying in Hebrew that says: לְכָל כְּלָל יֵשׁ יוֹצֵא מִן הַכְּלָל. This means that every rule has its exceptions. So one can’t always rely on that main principle of ה and ת endings of the feminine nouns. There are quite a few nouns in Hebrew that end with other letters that are feminine as well. Unfortunately there is no way to distinguish them without memorize them.

For example:

Mother

אִמָּא

Grandmother

סָבְתָא

Goat

עֵז

Country

אֶרֶץ

Chasm

תְּהוֹם

Road

דֶּרֶךְ

Wind

רוּחַ

Sun

שֶׁמֶשׁ

Glass

כּוֹס

City square

כִּכָּר

Shoe

נַעַל

Jenny

אָתוֹן

Grapevine

גֶּפֶן

Most of these words have some history beyond them. כּוֹס, for example, is referred to in the bible as feminine, but in the Talmud as masculine. Nowadays it has fixed firmly as feminine by the language speakers. The word face (=פָּנִים) has similar history, though vice versa. The bible refers to it as masculine, but the Talmud as feminine. Today Hebrew speakers use freely both feminine and masculine gender when speaking about faces.

רוּחַ and שֶׁמֶשׁ both appeared in the bible as words without specific gender. Sometimes the bible refers to them as masculine and sometimes as feminine. Nowadays the spoken language firmly refers to them as feminine. If you visit Israel and try to describe the sun with masculine adjectives, people will insistently correct your alleged mistake. But as long as the bible can, so can you. And a lot of writers utilize this fact. Hence we can find songs with a feminine sun. Like the song אוֹר with the line:

@larry goldberg Hi Larry, thanks for your comment! I’m glad you like our blog. No problem, from now on I’ll definitely write down the words in English. Good luck with your Hebrew learning. Practice makes perfect 🙂

Interesting article. I have a question though: How does one distinguish between genders in definitions with multiple words? For example, lawnmower is מכסחת דשא. Would the gender be dictated by the first or second word? And if the former, that would be feminine? Any help most appreciated.

@Marcus Hi Marcus, that’s a great question! Hebrew grammar includes construct states: noun combined with second noun to describe and classify the first noun. We called it סְמִיכוּת. The first noun called נִסְמָךְ and the phrase gender is dictated by its gender. מַכְסֵחַת דֶּשֶׁא is feminine because the first noun is feminine: מַכְסֵחָה.The second noun דֶּשֶׁא is indeed masculine, but since it is not the first noun – the נִסְמָךְ – it doesn’t affect the phrase gender.

@Suzanne/ שושנה Hi Suzanne, Thank you for your comment! I’m here to help 🙂 Good luck with your Hebrew studies. You are maybe a beginner now, but with your enthusiasm and a bit of practice you will get fluency in no time 😉

Thanks for your help. may i know the gender of these words in Hebrew: heaven, earth, darkness, waters, spirit, light, day, night, morning, dome, seas, vegetation, plant, seed, tree, fruit. Thanks once more for helping us to learn more about Hebrew language.

Thank you very much. I am taking some Hebrew classes and I need most of the time to be helped. I am a beginner and I am really motivated. Would you mind to give me some advice about transliteration? What is the easiest way to deal with it? Thanks.

@Peggy Hi Peggy,
Knife סכין, for example, is an Hebrew word that functions as masculine and feminine as well. Face פנים is another example for word that is both masculine and feminine.
No, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The feminine form not always ends with a, as we discussed in the article above. I will publish more posts about this subject, so everything will be clear 🙂

hi there, could you please help me with a word which I think is masculine but I would like the feminine version. If I understand correctly “Azarel” means “God has helped” and I think it’s a masculine form or a masculine name. How can I change it to “She who God has helped” or “God has helped her” or a variation of that please Ayana?

You are right – Azarel is a masculine name, means “God has helped”. Azar is a verb – past tense, singular, masculine. El means God. Azar refers to God, and not to the person, so there is no way to change the name according to the person, or make it a femminine name. You can always add ה as suffix to create a feminine name, but in that case it doesn’t sound so good. Other way is to name a girl with masculine name. I know a girl that is named Anael, means “God has responsed”. Ana is a verb (again – past tense, singular, masculine) that means answered, and it refers to God.
As a sentence “God has helped her” in Hebrew is –
אל עזר לה
or
אלוהים עזר לה
“She who God has helped” in Hebrew means –
זו שאל עזר לה
or
זאת שאלוהים עזר לה